Grilled Pizza with Roasted Tomatoes and Arugula

photo by sara tady ©

Every once in a while I make something my husband coins as "special".  This was one of those things.  Super simple yet super gourmet.

photo by sara tady ©

Ingredients:
Pizza Dough- I used the garlic herb dough from Trader Joe's
Fresh Buffalo Mozzarella
Arugula
2 Tomatoes
Pizza sauce/ Marinara

Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 400.
2) Slice tomatoes thin.  Salt and pepper both sides.  Drizzle with olive oil. Place on a baking sheet and into oven for 15 minutes
3) Roll out (or stretch out like I do) the dough. Use flour if needed. Place directly onto a hot grill for 4 minutes and then flip for 3 minutes.  If you don't have a grill you can use your oven just put it on a baking sheet.  It won't be as good though, fair warning :)
4) Spoon pizza sauce on the most undercooked side (should be the second side) then layer on cheese, tomatoes and whatever dried herbs you like.  I used oregano, red pepper flake and parsley.  I also happened to have a block of Pecorino in the fridge so I shaved some on top-such a bonus!
5) Put back on the grill for another 3 minutes or so.
6) Take out and top with arugula.

Homemade Pizza with Chicken Sausage and Roasted Red Pepper

photo by sara tady ©

Every once in a while I get the urge for "homemade pizza night".  Recently I threw together a few ingredients from my favorite grocery store, Trader Joe's.  It came out pretty tasty and VERY cheesy :)  I would classify this pizza as more of a guilt-free pizza vs. your favorite Chicago deep-dish.  There's so many other delicious toppings you could include here.  Mushrooms, olives, red onion....

Ingredients:

Whole Wheat Pizza dough

Pesto (store bought or fresh)

1 bag of shredded Italian Cheese Mix

2 Spicy Chicken Sausage links (pre cooked)

Roasted Red Pepper (jarred) 

Basil

Directions:

step 1: Roll out pizza dough as best as possible.  Mine usually end up in more of a rectangular shape.  This is not about a perfect circle here.

step 2:  bake the dough first, according to the directions on the dough packaging (roughly 12-15 mins)

step 3: Chop sausage and roasted red peppers

step 4: Remove the pizza dough from the oven, spread a liberal amount of pesto across the surface, sprinkle on sausage, whole bag of cheese, and top with roasted red pepper.

step 5: place the pizza back into heated oven to melt cheese and heat all toppings thoroughly.  

step 6: Remove pizza, sprinkle freshly chopped basil on top and enjoy!